Actually i too have a problem where it takes several minutes for the lobbies to show up in the browser. It also takes the same amount of time to create a lobby.
Also, if you've been connected for a long period of time - especially this close to a major date - exit out of the game, and relaunch. There might be patches waiting.
Thank you, mates! I managed to restart the game and create a lobby. But when the game started, it was too laggy and with 29 minutes the sim simply stopped and every unit got frozen in their place. System was only four planets and four players.
